SOFA fosters creative, collaborative space

By Carissa Woytach

Among the many student organizations on campus, The Student Organization of Fine Arts (SOFA), which meets in the Middough building on the fringes of Cleveland State University, pulls together students from artistic disciplines across the campus.

SOFA is known for its largest and only event, the annual Student and Merit Scholars Art Show at the Galleries at CSU.

The planning for the spring show starts the winter beforehand with ornament sales. These ornaments are made by SOFA members to raise money to provide free wine at the gallery After these ornaments are sold, members suggest possible judges from the Cleveland area to jury the work.

After settling on their jurors, students submit their work and the chosen pieces are hung in the gallery during the show.

While the gallery show will remain SOFA’s main responsibility, Molecke hopes to make the organization into a collaborative space for university students.

“In the past, SOFA has been mainly responsible for putting on the student art show and the merit scholarship show, and basically that really is the only responsibility as a group that it has,” she said. “However, I want to do a lot more with SOFA because often times I’ve found that different [art majors] don’t really have relations amongst each other and I really want to bring all of SOFA together.”

Molecke plans to have outings for SOFA members, including attending “Painting the Modern Gardens: Monet to Matisse” at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This outing, and others, would be free to SOFA members.

She also hopes to have at least one lecturer, Sarah Paul, a local artist who juried the student show last spring.

“I think a lot of students are looking at what’s going to happen when we graduate and it’s kind of scary, so I actually want to have a lecture with an artist who has graduated and is working out there in the field and is young and cool enough that we can all relate to,” she said. “I think [Paul] could say a lot to us that would help us see the future after university, because it is a scary thing.”

SOFA is open to all university students and meets in MB 221 every other Tuesday. Their next meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 3 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

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